Important points to make are:
• The Traffic Assessment included in the applications indicates that a substantial proportion of the customers for the gym will come from outside the area and the proposed opening times mentioned in the applications are 6am to 10pm weekdays and 7.30am to 10pm at weekends, with the possibility of even longer hours. All of this is completely inappropriate to the wholly residential area in which the library is situated. Residents should not have to suffer the disturbance of loud voices in the streets and car doors slamming. The Assessment says many of the gym users will travel to and from it by train or bus but this is not credible and there would be increased pressure on the limited amount of parking space in the roads round the gym.
• The proposed excavation of the basement is not deep enough to accommodate gym uses in which the participants jump or raise up their arms. It is proposed to hold exercise classes, including "higher energised" ones, on the ground floor but a group of people jumping up and down in any one of those rooms would generate vibration and noise which would preclude the use of the other rooms.
• Lambeth's Planning policies require construction on back gardens to leave at least 70% unbuilt on and all construction to be a positive response to what is there already. The proposed construction would take up more than half the Reading and Wildlife Garden, leaving only a strip separated from the building, and destroy mature trees. The garden is a public one and the setting of the Listed library building. It should be left alone. If construction is necessary it should be in keeping with the building and take place on the van park.
• The information provided so far has been grossly inadequate. The applications have been given only minimal publicity. They are available only on the Council's website and then only intermittently. The application documents repeatedly assert that implementing the proposals would "aid and support" the building but no details are provided. There is no indication of where the exercise classes would take place. We are told that this would be in community spaces but all the accommodation has this label and nowhere is set aside for library or other community uses. There is nothing about measures to contain vibration or noise, about air conditioning on any floor of the building or about smell inside or outside the building.

It's at Bolney Meadow Community Centre, 31 Bolney Street, London, SW8 1EZ
New posh venue - no scope for chucking glitter over council officers up there I should think. It's the sort of steel and glass building that would probably lock you in until the Police turned up.

As much as I love the idea of a library I can't honestly see much future for them in their current guise. Kids simply don't need them anymore. It's a worthy fight but I don't see how they can survive the digital 'revolution'. I grew up a geeky kid who couldn't wait my for my weekly visit to the library but the average kid these days probably doesn't go anywhere a book. It's all there online. No need to leave the house.

One of the sources of my exasperation was the failure of the public audience to understand what planning committees decide. This is very often the case with these situations. Understandably people don't want the library closed. But the planning committee weren't there to decide that, they were there to decide whether or not to grant a change of use for the basement, and whether to grant permission for the extensions and other alterations.

The library is currently classified D1. That's a use category that includes libraries but also lots of other things. In planning terms the use of the building could be changed to any of those other things right now without any planning permission being needed. Whether or not the basement use change (to class D2) and the extensions were approved, this would remain the case. This point was made several times but the more vocal part of the audience didn't seem to get it.

However the committee were also fairly hopeless in their questioning. There were various legitimate issues raised in the various objectors statements but they failed to properly address several of these. Again this seems to be a common scenario. They spent ages discussing whether there should be a condition relating to baby changing facilities but just didn't go into depth of any of the more substantial issues raised which potentially could have given them grounds to refuse. The questions they did raise, were actually all fairly well answered by the planners and supporters. They just didn't ask the right questions which was very frustrating.

In my opinion, having listened to planners' responses there didn't seem to be overwhelming reasons to refuse this application. But I certainly felt that there were reasons which coudl have been, but just weren't examined enough.

The planning officers' recommendation to approve did contain various conditions and to give them their dues these conditions did seem to deal with *some* of the issues raised by objections. One point that was made was that at the moment, permitted development rights mean that parts of the existing D1 use could be converted to A-type (ie cafes etc) uses without planning permission. One of the conditions is to remove this, meaning that the main part o the library would have to remain as D1.

As much as I love the idea of a library I can't honestly see much future for them in their current guise. Kids simply don't need them anymore. It's a worthy fight but I don't see how they can survive the digital 'revolution'. I grew up a geeky kid who couldn't wait my for my weekly visit to the library but the average kid these days probably doesn't go anywhere a book. It's all there online. No need to leave the house.

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Carnegie was a hugely popular library and was used by people of all ages - as witnessed by the young people who supported the occupation. It had adapted and was a real asset to the community. This fucking short-term gym scheme is a disaster and a disgrace.

The thing is that libraries are used for things other than simply somewhere which has books. The presence of librarians is fairly important for all this other stuff. In the Carnegie instance, the proposals claim that there will not be a substantially reduced selection of books and that it will be open for longer hours than previously. However, the hours during which it will be staffed with proper librarians are going to be substantially cut. As far as I can make out.

What absolute rot.
And it's not just kids who need them. We all need them. Libraries provide more than just books. They are a godsend to our most vulnerable citizens - the unemployed, the poor, the elderly, the sick, children and parents. They need to be protected. Indeed, this is actually enshrined by law, but councils appear to be flouting this.

As much as I love the idea of a library I can't honestly see much future for them in their current guise. Kids simply don't need them anymore. It's a worthy fight but I don't see how they can survive the digital 'revolution'. I grew up a geeky kid who couldn't wait my for my weekly visit to the library but the average kid these days probably doesn't go anywhere a book. It's all there online. No need to leave the house.

'we don't need libraries' usually comes from the lips of middle class people who live in a comfortable bubble - with plenty of books at home, room to study, a home computer and good health - so it's easy to think that libraries are superfluous these days.

As much as I love the idea of a library I can't honestly see much future for them in their current guise. Kids simply don't need them anymore. It's a worthy fight but I don't see how they can survive the digital 'revolution'. I grew up a geeky kid who couldn't wait my for my weekly visit to the library but the average kid these days probably doesn't go anywhere a book. It's all there online. No need to leave the house.

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So whose there to teach children to interrogate the results from their searches? Mum or Dad? Teachers? Barclay's Digital Eagles*? Libraries are needed more than ever in the sea of the information age.

* Note how quickly they were in when libraries/librarians were getting cut to peddle their view of information literacy.

As much as I love the idea of a library I can't honestly see much future for them in their current guise. Kids simply don't need them anymore. It's a worthy fight but I don't see how they can survive the digital 'revolution'. I grew up a geeky kid who couldn't wait my for my weekly visit to the library but the average kid these days probably doesn't go anywhere a book. It's all there online. No need to leave the house.